Ships in the Night
by 2DaughtersOfAthena
Summary: One night, Damon met Elena. In the grimy, cheap atmosphere of the Mystic Grill, things are brighter for just one evening. Oneshot, AU.


**Okay. Hello! So, this is something new. Something a little bit different. I haven't written TVD before, so this has sort of been my secret project for a little while. It's been an absolute breath of fresh air to write, so I feel very happy with it. I hope you all enjoy it too.**

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The Mystic Grill. Never one to be overly atmospheric, unless you count cheap as an aesthetic. However, booze is booze when it comes to it. When it comes to a shitty day, and the need for something violently stronger than coffee, the Mystic Grill bar is right there alongside you. Damon Salvatore had been in a lot of bars throughout his twenty-something years of life, across the country, and the globe. He didn't particularly like this one, but it was there. And he got to drink alone, most of the time.

He was never sure of the bartender at the Grill. Always someone fresh out of high school and skating through college. This one no dissimilar, vaguely pouring the whiskey until he grabbed it for himself, paying for the whole damn bottle. _Whiskey_. How typical, he thought. Typical brooding, handsome, man at a bar, waiting to be watched by a pretty young thing and definitely preferring to be a glaringly sarcastic stranger. No matter, the whiskey didn't burn the same as it used to.

"Three shots please," demanded a voice from beside him. _Crap_. Someone to spoil all his fun. He didn't turn towards her, instead waiting for her to say something to him. No such luck. So, they sat in silence, while her shots vanished one by one down her throat, and the glasses were slammed back onto the bar. "Three more." And she drank the next three just as fast. Only then did Damon slide around in his seat to face whoever this devilish drinker was.

"Here to get wasted?" he asked politely, smirking and tipping his drink back before pouring out another into the glass.

"Yep," she replied, wiping her mouth with a sleeve corner.

"Why?"

"I don't see how it's any of your business," she snapped, finally meeting his eyes with a ferocious glare of her own. He raised a single eyebrow, impressed by the fire in her. Also, she was seriously… _Beautiful_. He hated to use the word. It sounded so idolatrous, and so wrong. But she was. More than a hot girl at a bar, which was his usual type. She blinked a few times, seeming to want her eyes and head to clear. Not likely after all that tequila.

"Whiskey?" he offered, holding out the bottle. She reached for it, and he pulled it back, scowling. "Hey, no. Drink from a glass. Seriously." When the bartender wasn't looked, he snuck a glass from behind the bar, and poured a portion of the amber liquid inside it. The girl scowled right back at him, took the glass and downed the whole thing. It was enough to make him cringe. "Jeez, not like that. Are you crazy?" He poured her another.

"Who are you? Strangers don't talk to each other like that," the girl accused, sipping at the drink instead this time.

"Strangers are the most honest people," Damon quipped back.

"What makes you say that?"

"Everyone is a liar."

"You're a pretty big pessimist," she remarked.

"Nope, just realistic," he answered, drinking more of the whiskey.

"What about friends? Family?"

"I am from a family of pathological liars. Can't help it," he shrugged.

"Sorry," she muttered. "What's your name?"

"Damon. You?"

"Elena."

"Pretty name," he remarked, tipping his whiskey to her. "May I ask why you're out to get spent?"

"Not yet, I need to be more drunk."

Elena downed the rest of her whiskey and poured out a new one, while Damon smirked more openly this time, accepting her demeanour more than he had at first. Maybe she was a good enough drinking buddy, even just for the night. She then glanced around the rest of the bar, watching all the people and ignoring the extraordinarily beautiful man beside her. Few teens, playing games in half-empty leather booths, people out drinking with work friends, and the odd hen party or stag do, wearing the costumes that go hand-in-hand with the evening. Ridiculous amounts of chatter. Then there were the couples with glasses of wine, and pretending like they don't want to just get wrecked. Either there for a first date, or to remember their first date.

The bar itself was a kaleidoscope of different people. Elderly men on their daily binges, and young women like herself to just forget for a night, with young men watching them in interest, as if their prey was readying itself to be caught. It was disgusting and equally fascinating. She noticed someone she knew, and avoided their eyes expertly, as they seemed preoccupied with their drink anyway. Tyler Lockwood, presumably still trying to get over Caroline, and failing miserably, having let himself go to a place where he had a beard and liquor dribbling down his chin. He pulled at the label on the bottle, stressed. Elena looked away.

"What's your deal then?" she asked, turning back to the handsome stranger called Damon. "Why are you getting _spent_ at a bar in the middle of this sad little town. I haven't seen you around before."

"Same as ever. I like this bar, and I like alcohol. Just another day for me," Damon intoned. "What's with all the questions all of a sudden?"

"Hey, you asked about me, it's only fair I get to ask about you," Elena protested. He didn't speak, and only looked at her with a mixture of confusion and intrigue. Then he shrugged, pouring out another whiskey and drinking it like it's just water to him. And it was, sort of. The alcohol bled easily into his system, numbing him – but just not enough.

"I'll answer if you do," he eventually spoke, relishing in the bitter taste coursing down his throat.

"Fine."

They sat in silence for several moments, each waiting for the other. Finally, Damon sighed and spoke.

"So, why are you trying to get wasted?" He internally was shouting at her for being so slow. Sure, she was pretty, but God did she look vague at this point. Perhaps a key element of the getting drunk, but equally annoying.

"Boyfriend troubles." She paused. "And my family." _Boyfriend. Great._

"What's up with the lover?" Damon asked, hating himself for it.

"Gross, don't call him that," Elena scowled. "More of an ex-boyfriend, to be honest."

She stole his bottle of whiskey and poured herself yet another drink, hoping for this one to bring her just that much closer to being entirely knocked out by alcohol.

"He just decided to turn up and screw things over around here," she continued. "What about you?"

"I just like to drink."

"At least I was honest."

"Fine." Damon took a deep breath and a swig of whiskey. "Celebrating the death of my father."

"Well, that's horrible," she laughed.

"He was."

Damon turned the glass over in his fingers, thinking back to his father. There was nothing celebratory about him drinking in this bar, with this girl, thinking about his dead father. The fact was this, his father was dead, and every year that thought brought out the same menagerie of emotions it had done when he had died eight years ago. Confusion because of the hate, and the sadness, and the remorse. Because his father was dead, he was forced to look through those false rose-tinted glasses at the good stuff, and in turn forced himself to remember every foul, and awful thing his father had ever done.

"Do you want to talk about it?" asked the beautiful Elena from beside him.

"Do you want to talk about your boyfriend?" Damon snapped back.

"Touché."

They drank in silence for six minutes, before Elena, the unexpectedly chatty stranger, spoke again.

"Listen. You said strangers are the most honest people. It's obvious we both need to talk about our shit. So, let's just talk about it. And then we can pass, just like ships in the night."

"How poetic," Damon muttered. "Fine. You first."

"Fine," she snapped. "You've been in love, right?" He nodded, rolling his eyes. "Right, so you know what it's like. There's this person, and you think they're amazing because they think you're amazing." She paused, sighing heavily. "But then… Then they're the wrong person, and you don't know how you changed, but you have, and everything is sour." Damon leaned back slightly, taking her words in. "And things are just _wrong_. Well, that's what it was like with Stefan."

"So, he was an ass?" Damon asked. She laughed in response.

"Almost the exact opposite." He raised an eyebrow. "He was just so perfect. He wanted us to belong together, and for everything to be simple and easy, and for us to spend every waking moment with each other. I was practically smothered in his annoying love and affection. It was suffocating."

"And then you broke up?"

"Exactly. We broke up. He was miserable. I was better." Damon nodded in understanding. "I moved on. He kept texting and calling, and then today. He turned up."

"What? Where?"

"At my house," she laughed mirthlessly.

Elena thought back to that exact moment when she'd seen his car pulling up outside the drive, and the flowers he held in his hands. She'd felt the same sick feeling she'd had throughout the final stages of their relationship. When he had told her that she was broken, but he could fix her. When he told her that there were many ways in which they could be better together. When he told her that they belonged together forever – but she didn't want that. She had been so young for such a powerful and dominating relationship.

Stefan was a good boyfriend. He always had been. He was kind and sensitive, and he wasn't overly masculine that meant he could protect as well as be gentle with Elena. Except, he was intense. He had been too intense for such a young part of her life. His power over her made her sick. She started getting anxious whenever he was around, panicking, being sick. She couldn't help it.

"What happened?" Damon asked, bringing her from her reverie. She swallowed thickly and thought back to earlier in the day, when Stefan had demanded to come in, had pleaded with her. "Guessing he wanted to get back together?"

"Yeah," she smiled coldly. "He… He said that he'd had some time to think and was ready to give it another go."

"What a fucktard."

Elena laughed then, and it was warm. Damon almost smiled to himself, pleased that he could wipe away her vulnerability concerning the ex-boyfriend. He poured them both another drink, feeling his mind getting very slightly heavier in the lateness of the hour, and with the copious amounts of alcohol they had both been drinking.

"Tell me your story," Elena told him, sliding forwards on her seat, as if eagerly awaiting. Damon twisted his mouth in a humourless smile, considering her. What did he have to lose? They were only going to pass as strangers, like ships in the night. "Please," she continued.

"Alright then," he smirked. "My Dad was crappy. Consistently crappy, you might even say. Every year, I get this thing where I am forced to wonder whether he's good and deserves to be celebrated. Three hundred and sixty-four days a year, I hate him. Today, this one day, I can't, and I hate that about him the most."

"You hate that he has a hold over you?" Elena asked.

"I hate that he was my dad, and that I can't just hate him," he explained. Then he tipped back another drink, preferring to be buzzed rather than think about his dad right now. Of course, he couldn't escape the slightly suffocating feeling that often accompanies grief. Guilt, that's what it was. Damon was never one for much guilt in his life, but his father was still his father. The alcohol tore its destructive way down his oesophagus, but it's not quite enough. "Sorry. Heavy, I know," he laughed.

"It's alright," Elena replied, reaching out to touch his shaking hand. The old tremor back in the face of alcoholism, and for his guilt. Damon pulled away.

"I'm not sad," he clarified.

"You seem sad."

"I'm mad."

"Mad how?" Elena brushed hair from her eyes, watching him. His eyes were an odd pale blue, in great contrast to his dark hair. She watched him as he scowled, glaring around at the rest of the room in contempt. At the juniors playing pool, the googly-eyed couples, and the pick and mix of drunkards.

"Just mad. I don't get sad."

They sat in silence for several minutes, small pieces of resentment growing between them, binding them. Little things in the moments allowing them to read each other. When Elena leant back in her chair, when Damon didn't pour another drink. They both knew that they had affected each other, and certainly without meaning to. Eventually, the bar was quietened with drawing midnight, and Last Call was announced by a bellied male bartender. The pair glanced at each other, unwilling friends for the evening.

"Alright, you two. Time to go," the bartender told him. Damon nodded, accepting defeat. He left bills on the counter and stood, waiting for Elena to stumble out of her own stool and clutch onto his leather-clad arms. They weren't even the last two people in the bar, but their close proximity to the bartender made it easier for him to get rid of them first.

Damon supported her until they were outside in the piercing night air. It seemed to wake her up a fraction.

"My parents died too," she mumbled, lightly running her fingers over his face.

"I'm sorry," Damon murmured in response. He didn't flinch away from her, like she had expected. Instead, they stood in each other's arms, both assessing the other. Whether they could remain strangers while there was an unspeakable bond between them. He smelt like leather and alcohol, and she was the same. But Damon could tell there was more to her than a damaged, toxic relationship. She was yellow, she was sunshine, she was a little bit of light.

Promising that this would be the only time, he kissed her.

And she kissed him back.

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 **Thanks for reading!**


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